Work work work work
Work work work work
Work work work work
Work work…you better work!
Work work work work
Work work work work
Work work work work
Work work…you better work!—Ciara, “Work”, Album: Fantasy Ride [1]
My little sister (she is hardly little – 17 year old woman) is here for half term. Yesterday I was having a professional dilemma that I was unsure about and she gave great advice. Here is a summary of my problem[s]. Continue reading
The advert break just came on now, while I am watching Candy Girls.
It’s one of my new shows I am addicted to*. However, in this episode, something happened that showed that the music video world is still colourist. Here’s what happened:
Danielle told the girls they needed two birds for a N*E*R*D video. She picked Terricka & Olivia because they looked ‘mixed’ (Danielle’s words, not mine) as she said, N*E*R*D are like a ‘white,black’ group. I don’t think she said that in clear English anyway but the theme is clear: light skinned girls are wanted for black male groups, and dark skinned girls aren’t. Last time I checked Pharrell is black, not ‘white/black’.
I still really like watching Candy Girls but I think what Danielle said is a symptom of what the audience and industry wants to see, not what we should see.
*=Along with Daddy’s Girls, The Hills & The City.
[NB: Watch the full documentary here at Google Video. I implore you to watch this. You won't regret it]
In an acclaimed drama by Channel 4 in 1998, “Sex in a cold climate”, the story of the Magdalene Asylums in Ireland was unveiled with tragic tones. Four women used their voices to tell their stories: Martha Cooney, then 71, Christina Mulcahy, then 79, Phyllis Valentine, who was 58 and the time and Brigid Young, 59.
The Magdalene Asylums were institutions run by Roman Catholic nuns where supposed ‘fallen women’ such as prostitutes were rehomed, and given work as laundresses. As the voice over states: “purging of sins by washing dirty linen.” Eventually unmarried mothers, girls who were seen as ‘too beautiful’ or even girls who had been raped were sent to these homes for ‘punishment’ as one of the survivors put it in the documentary. The work was gruelling and no wages were paid. Harsh punishments were dished out to those who stepped out of line, such as shaving the girls’ heads and beatings.
If a girl had a child out of wedlock, her parents would continue the descent into barbarism by carting off their own flesh and blood to these concentration camps. What struck me about what these four women had suffered was how any human beings, religious or not, could have subjected another person to the intense psychological torture that these women’s suffered.
In the documentary, Brigid Young recalls: “They used to stand at the bottom of the laundry. They’d be laughing at us and criticising us and if you were heavy, fat or whatever, ..shout abuse to us – we had no privacy at all.” This emotional abuse of young women, whose minds were still growing is a violation of human rights. It also proves that misogyny in the Roman Catholic church was still alive and well in the 20th century. The hatred of the image of the mortal woman, who could be sexually active or not, manifested in these nuns tearing down the spirit of the young women by psychological abuse.
One powerful story was that of Christina Mulcahy who fell pregnant out of wedlock at 21. She gave birth to a boy. Separated from the father of the child by the nuns, Mulcahy’s child was sent into care. Continue reading
[NB: I wrote this originally for my mother. Please chime in with your thoughts and criticisms of my style of writing. I have always wanted to be a better writer, but I need to fine tune some things]
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Black Swan
An Essay
The swan is famously known for having one partner for life. It is a symbol of love, as the swan does not find another mate if the partner dies, so unlike human behaviour. When widowed, the swan is akin to being a lone wolf, away from the pack with an independent mind. Continue reading
[I wrote this @ The Afro Spear and have cross-posted it here]
Last weekend, I went with a close friend of mine at a hair salon in east London. My friend was getting a weave done, however, just sitting with her was such a ripe opportunity for me to observe how some black women act within the space of the hair salon.
10. The sharp smell of smoke that was piping out of one patron’s head as she sat underneath the dryer! I never noticed how thick the plumes of smoke can get.
9. How the rattail combs poke in and out of people’s heads as they undo their braids underneath their long weaves.
8. The stitching together of weaves could be a metaphor of how we need to stick together as black people. Continue reading
…too pretty, less masculine or what women really want? Continue reading
Portions of this article are cross-posted at my TV blog, House & Home
“Lorne brought her over to my house when she was head writer,”…“She was very mousy. I thought, Well, they gotta be having an affair. But they weren’t. He just appreciated her talent. –Sue Mengers, Hollywood Agent, on Tina Fey pre-fame, quoted in Vanity Fair.
‘Liz Lemon’: Besides wanting Tina Fey’s tiny waist as my own, I respect this woman’s work ethic. I watched the whole first series of 30 Rock this past weekend. It is one of the funniest, sharp, witty and general joke programmes that has come out of the US for many years. I am not normally a massive fan of US comedy to be honest. I think a lot of the sitcom fodder like Friends was dull and unoriginal. 30 Rock is not a sitcom but it is like a new form of comedy that is self-referential and makes fun of itself. Do yourself a favour and watch it please.
It’s no secret that Tina created the show, developed it, writes on it sometimes as well as being the lead actress on it. I can barely find time to work on my website as well as doing my assignments for my journalism MA and this woman is doing so many roles on the show. Tina is 38, married, a mum of one child and this hard working woman who has basically built a brand.
Reading that Vanity Fair quote again, I take great offence to this idea that Fey had to have been *with* a man (older than her, of course) to have been successful. It’s such an annoying idea and even more so that it comes from a WOMAN!
We really are our own worst enemies. Fey worked hard for her success. It doesn’t always have to be a man who is there.
Plans & Ideas: I knew wanting to start my own website for my masters was not going to be easy. One of the problems I face is that I am one of those big dreamers. I would love to work for myself in five years time and be able to do things my way. But one of the things that gets me in my regularly is that I can become lazy and forget about things. Anyway, I have gotten off my arse this week to seriously research my masters idea for my website.
It’s still vox-pop.co.uk but I have taken off most of the content of the site so I can relaunch and start from scratch. When I was doing those updates last year, I was painting by numbers. I was just doing it day by day, not sure how vox-pop would be like and seeing what would happen. I was so lucky many people were nice to me when I emailed them for help.
It’s still going to be a careers website, but basically it is going to feature interviews from people who work in the PR & media industries on how to break into the industry in London. I am also going to feature a section on media entrepreneurs, of which I have the content due to lovely people who talked to me. One blog that is just an amazing read from a financial perspective and an ideological one is Get Rich Slowly. I caught a post by JD about confidence and self-improvement. Read it – it is excellent and has given me food for thought.
Cold Calling: This week, I called many schools in Walthamstow, looking for help to distribute my questionnaires to media students. I have literally had to change my way of looking at cold calling.
I was always terrified of calling people up and asking for things. I have always seen it as sales. So, as part of another uni project I am doing, I put myself down to be a co-advertising manager for this magazine we are making for our course. I know what you are thinking. Why would a girl who is terrified of sales sign up for sales? I know. It’s sounds silly and maybe it is. But I need to learn how to sell myself on the phone if I want to make vox-pop.co.uk are success and I do, so I better learn now and quick.
And it is helping. I still get nervous doing cold calls but even today, when I was calling the schools to ask for people’s names, I know it is a means to an end. I really want this website to work and I know in order for it to work (to an extent), I need to make sure I call people so that they can see my passion for it.
So, in total, I have called 6 schools this week. I should really be calling and emailing more but I want to create close relationships with the career advisors there so I think I will start small and hopefully, I will get my questionnaires distributed by the beginning of March.
More plans: I spoke to the web host about PHP, MySQL etc so again, hopefully this relaunch will happen before the end of February 2009. The next steps now while I wait for the career advisors to get back to me (as well as chasing them) include:
Stay tuned. I will be writing more about this project on the blog and as always, comments and criticisms are welcome.
Cruel: That should be the word to describe what fancying someone can be like. It almost feels like a practical joke that has been played on you. We got snowed in today so I didn’t go into uni. I spent most of the day watching vintage House episodes from series 1-3. House is a programme that has spawned some great fan videos of YouTube over the supposed (un)requited love between the eponymous doctor and his female employee, Dr.Cameron, best exemplified below:
It’s always devastating watching or reading something in which people get rejected for their feelings, even if it is fiction. Then again, we have all been there where we invest so much of our feelings onto someone, when it is not reciprocated, the cruelty of it becomes all the more apparent.
Respite: That’s what I had been searching for a few years ago when I had this big old crush on this guy, a long time before I fell for the man who would be my boyfriend. The guy I fancied, this Gentleman X, is something I hate talking about just because how irrational it made me. But after watching Cameron *suffer* in silence, it made me think, for me, it was like this never ending cycle of fancying someone to the point where it drove me (and my suffering friends) crazy. When I fell in love for the first time with my boyfriend, it all changed from there, but I still know what Cameron felt like; I know why she asked House ‘I need to know’. She needed to be set free from the torture of pining for someone who may or may not have any interest in her. It’s agonising not being allowed respite because you know it’s not love, but it feels that way.
Under the weather: The tell tale sign of a hardcore crush on someone is when your mood starts to change, like Transport for London’s live travel news. When I look back at my days of fancying Gentleman X, my mood was like an inverted rollercoaster at Thorpe Park – I wanted the person to like me (when I didn’t *know* him). I wanted him to like me for all the wrong reasons. And it made me miserable thinking that he didn’t know who I was or what I was about.
This is why having a crush is like a brittle branch of the tree of infatuation. It isn’t a full blown obsession yet but when the feelings are not reciprocated, be assured that the tree will start to lose its’ branches just as your feelings start to plummett to the floor.
School: Please let’s not even get into the schoolgirl crushes some of us had on our teachers! In House, Wilson described Cameron’s situation best when he said:
Hope: When a crush mutates into infatuation or love, this can be the desired effect for many people. I think when you fancy someone, you like the idea of them but it only becomes whole when you fall for them. Falling in love and having a crush are two separate things. Secretly pining for someone is never the way to go in order to grow a healthy image of your self-esteem.
In that sense, Cameron is effed. She has that rare condition where you fancy someone & you are falling in love with them, without even saying the words. But then again, that affliction touches us all at some point in our lives.
